Sunday, April 23, 2017

Character Types: That Guy Who Just Won't Die

Have you ever gotten to the end of a book or movie, and
looking back, you think about one of the characters and ask, “How are
you still ALIVE?” Even though you may have watched the film or read the book,
some circumstances seem a little over the top.

This post is dedicated to the survivors. To the characters
who somehow managed to cheat death. To That Guy Who Just Won’t Die.

Disclaimer: A lot of my vocabulary comes from the
American Midwest where the term “guy” is like the singular version of the
southern “y’all”. Calling someone a “guy” is not gender specific and can
refer to a man or a woman. In informal situations, I often refer a group of
women as “you guys”. Also, because of the nature of this post, some spoilers
may be present for The Hobbit, Leverage, Sherlock, Batman
Returns, and Batman v Superman.

There’s a fine line between unbelievable and believable.
Often times, That Guy Who Just Won’t Die crosses that line. After all, if I
don’t see the body, I won’t believe he’s dead! And as my friend Faith likes to
point out, sometimes not even then…

I’ve decided to rank the survivors on a scale of one to ten,
one being the characters in the most intense situations who somehow still live.
You’re free to debate the order. I had a hard enough time deciding myself.

10) Thorin Oakenshield and Company (J. R. R. Tolkien’s The
Hobbit)

Bear with me here. Despite being a huge fan of The Hobbit,
I often wonder how many of the characters survived. After all, Thorin managed
to survive Smaug’s takeover of Erebor, several encounters with orcs and
goblins, not to mention the mountain trolls, a thunder battle, the spiders of
Mirkwood, dragon sickness, and ridiculous falls throughout the movies. It’s
amazing any of the characters made out of the Shire alive, let alone to the
Lonely Mountain.

Yet The Battle of Five Armies, and the last chapters
of The Hobbit, reveals that not every hero lives to see victory. Unless,
of course, you’re a hobbit.

How many ways can you almost kill off a character in an epic
poem? How about one for every book? Okay, so it’s not quite that many, but it’s
a lot! In this classic story, the Red Crosse Knight fights off a giant and a
dragon, nearly dying at least four times. But you can’t actually kill off the
hero before you get to the final chapter, can you?

8) Characters from Disney adaptations

Ever heard the phrase: life is not a fairy tale? Well, it’s
a good thing it’s not! In a lot of fairy tales, many of the characters die
and not everybody gets to live happily ever after. In most of the Disney
adaptations, however, a parent or two might be missing, but most of the primary
characters make it to the end, from Russell and Mr. Fredrickson in Up to
Anna and Sven in Frozen.

7) Select characters from TheIlluminae Files

(by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff)

Granted, a lot of people do die in these books. It’s
just full of so many intense situations, that I was surprised anybody survived
them. I mean, without survival, there wouldn’t be a story, but still. By the
time I got to the second book, I no longer expected certain characters to die, though
that wasn’t always the case because of parallel dimensions. As if space travel
wasn’t confusing enough…

6) Odysseus (Homer’s The Iliad and The Odyssey)

I recently watched The Odyssey with my dad, and man,
poor Odysseus just couldn’t get a break. Sure, he’s obnoxious in his pride, but
he still manages to be the sole survivor of his shipmates on his ten-year
voyage back to Ithaca despite Poseidon’s threats.

Granted, I haven’t actually read the books yet. (*gasp* I
know, I’m a bad bookworm. But they’re next on my classics list.) Yet a lot of
characters tend to survive outrageous situations in mythology. I’m surprised
more of them didn’t die sooner…

5) Sage (Jennifer A. Nielsen’s The Ascendance Trilogy)

This was perhaps the first book I read where I started
questioning how certain characters made it to the end alive. At one point Sage
literally jumps off a cliff, and the chapter ends there. If that’s not crazy, I
don’t know what is. Sure, Sage’s narrating style is brilliantly humorous, but
he’s also insane.

4) Eliot Spencer (Leverage)

Of his con-artist team, Eliot is known as the hitter. In
nearly every episode, he’s knocking out somebody in hand-to-hand combat. But
let’s face it, he’s had a lot of training. And he doesn’t always come away from
every episode unscathed. But if he gets shot, he just walks it off. Or limps it
off.

Parker: You’re shot. You should go to the hospital.
Eliot: I don’t do hospitals.
Hardison: I told you. He takes getting shot very lightly.
(Season 5: “The Rundown Job”)

3) Sherlock Holmes

(Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock
Holmesand BBC’s Sherlock)

Despite all attempts to kill off this famous and
outrageously annoying detective, he’s still solving crimes. Forget Moriarty,
not even the author, Doyle, could kill him off for long without the fans
demanding his return.

Sherlock's survival is another reason I simultaneously like/dislike the
BBC adaptation. They won’t explain why, but Sherlock is most definitely alive.

Petition to rename Season 4: Three Different Ways to Try
(And Fail) to Asphyxiate a High-Functioning Sociopath. Or maybe we could just
stick with Sherlock…

2) DC superheroes

Me: Why are you still alive?
Batman: Because I’m Batman.
Need I say more?

I’m still confused about Superman, though. Supposedly he’s
invincible with the exception of kryptonite, but in the last couple of movies
he died. Or did he? Is DC trying to be vague?

1) Basically any Marvel character EVER

Forget surviving impossible situations—most Marvel
characters just come back if they happen to die. Thor dies and comes back. Loki
fakes his death at least twice. Captain America gets frozen and comes back.
Bucky falls off a cliff but somehow manages to survive. I don’t even know how
many times Wolverine regenerates. I could go on. Whether coming back
disqualifies them from That Guy Who Just Won’t Die status, I’ll leave up to
you.

Now, before you think that characters are basically
invincible (if only), remember that they’re not. Go watch a Shakespeare play
(pick a play, any play) or read Margaret Atwood’s “Happy Endings” (hint:
it’s not terribly happy). Death is a common occurrence in literature, just like
life, which just makes the survivors that much more peculiar or fantastic,
depending on your perspective.

Personally, I find this character trope to be a little
annoying and really overused. Sure, to have a good story, you need good
suspense. But not too much, or it’s unbelievable.

Film references: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey,
Desolation of Smaug, and Battle of Five Armies; The Odyssey;
Leverage; Sherlock; Superman Returns; Batman v
Superman: Dawn of Justice; Thor and Thor: The Dark World; and
Captain America: The First Avenger.

Let’s chat! On a scale of Macbeth to Wolverine, how likely
is your favorite character to survive to the end of the story? Which characters
are you surprised made it out alive? What is your take on the Guy Who Just
Won’t Die? Yea or nay?

2 comments:

Haha I totally get this! It actually annoys me sometimes though?!? Like I GET IT...we want our heroes to live. But it also gets unrealistic at times. I'm actually frustrated Marvel won't kill anyone off. It takes the fear out of the movies because you know they'll never really hurt you. :P And I like to be terrified in movies so yeeeah.